In Miami, the elaborately constructed dragon breathed fire for enthralled audiences of the Greater Miami Opera. But on the cramped stage of War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale, it was reduced to a silent piece of cold cardboard.

"They had this gorgeous dragon in Miami," recalled Fort Lauderdale Symphony Society member Mary Jane Wilson. "What we had to have here was a kind of cardboard imitation."

Wilson and other longtime arts patrons can tell dozens of horror stories about the limitations of Broward County theaters, including a seating arrangement at War Memorial in which the musicians have to sit at the same level directly in front of patrons.

But now a core of seven, locally appointed members of the Performing Arts Authority -- Wilson and six others -- are working to bring Broward a theater large enough to stage major productions, store scenery and provide decent dressing rooms for performers.

"I hope the Performing Arts Center becomes a major source of pleasure to this community," said authority chairman Neil Sterling. "This is one of the strongest performing arts markets in the country."

Leonard Farber, Carl Mayhue, Alan Levy, Karen Margulies and Gerald Mager round out the rest of the authority, whose members were appointed by the Fort Lauderdale City Commission, the Broward County Commission and the Downtown Development Authority.

Wilson, a 25-year member of the local Opera Guild and Symphony Society, brings the most experience in staging performances to the group. Sterling, owner of a downtown Fort Lauderdale clothing store, is also a member of the Broward County School Board and the only authority member who has ever been elected to a local government post.

Farber is a multimillionaire who has developed 34 shopping centers from California to uuerto Rico, including Pompano Fashion Square and the Galleria mall. Mayhue, a longtime supporter of plans for the theater, owns a local liquor store chain, and Levy operates a large, family-owned agriculture business in Pompano Beach.

Mager is a prominent Hollywood lawyer and former justice on the 4th District Court of Appeal. Margulies is active in Jewish charities in South Broward and was active in support of the county's handgun control ordinance.

"We are seven chiefs," Margulies said of the board. "There are no Indians. Each one of us has been a leader."

The authority, created in July, meets twice a month on Thursdays. Seldom do all seven of the members show up for a single meeting.

In the past nine months, many of the meetings have been spent on office matters instead of theater issues. The difficult task of raising up to $10 million in private financing -- a sum that must be gathered if the theater is to be built -- won't even be started until this summer, only two years before construction is supposed to begin.

"I'm very pleased with the way the authority has been moving along," Sterling said. "You say, 'Oh gee, big deal, you set up an office,' but that takes time."

Authority members placed Wilson in charge of a committee that will meet with potential theater users to collect information on their needs and performance specifications. But several members are working on their own to improve their personal expertise in theater design and function.

Farber toured a theater while on vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Levy visited with six theater directors during a pleasure trip to the midwestern United States, and Margulies keeps a thick theater reference book on her coffee table for constant use.

"There are so many facts and situations we all need to be aware of," Levy said. "But I think we're going to come away with something outstanding."